NYCLA TO HOST CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION EVENT: BOOK-SIGNING RECEPTION FOR BELVA LOCKWOOD: THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE PRESIDENT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Anita Aboulafia 212-267-6646, ext. 225, aaboulafia@nycla.org

 

NYCLA TO HOST CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION EVENT:

BOOK-SIGNING RECEPTION FOR BELVA LOCKWOOD: THE WOMAN WHO

WOULD BE PRESIDENT

 

April 9, 2008 – New York, NY – On Wednesday, April 16 at 6:00 PM, the New York County Lawyers’ Association (NYCLA) is hosting a book-signing reception at its Home of Law, 14 Vesey Street, for the biography Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would Be President, written by Jill Norgren, professor emeritus of government at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The book chronicles the life of Ms. Lockwood (1830-1917), a lawyer, suffragist, pacifist and feminist, who made history as a candidate for the U.S. presidency in 1884 and 1888.

 

Ms. Norgren will discuss the life of Ms. Lockwood and autograph copies of her book, which is the first scholarly biography of the 19th-century activist. In 1879, Ms. Lockwood, who successfully rallied Congress and won the right for women lawyers to practice before the Supreme Court, herself became the first woman to appear before the Supreme Court. When she ran for president on the slate of the Equal Rights Party, Ms. Lockwood campaigned on such issues as high tariffs on foreign manufactured goods, currency reform, temperance and a foreign policy geared to international arbitration.

 

Ms. Norgren has also published (with Petra T. Shattuck) Partial Justice: Federal Indian Law in a Liberal Constitutional System and The Cherokee Cases. She is currently writing on the topics of Native American law and the legal treatment of women.

 

The reception is among the myriad NYCLA events taking place during NYCLA’s Centennial year celebration, which commenced in April 2007 and ends in December 2008. NYCLA (www.nycla.org) was founded in April 1908 as the first major bar association in the country that admitted members without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual identity. Since its inception, it has pioneered some of the most far-reaching and tangible reforms in American jurisprudence and has continuously played an active role in legal developments and public policy.

 

# # #